The Act of Killing

The power the cinema has on individuals around the world has been well documented. Hollywood’s mass media machine has pushed American ideals over every continent, giving outsiders a glimpse into American lifestyles. Of course, these lifestyles are a fabrication; a simulacra of an America that glorifies crime and gangsters, like in noir films; or an idealistic United States of America: propaganda powered by capitalistic and nationalistic tendencies meant to generate revenue, like in Hollywood Westerns. These ideas manifest themselves in both docile and disturbing ways, fundamentally changing people’s behavior in nearly every country American films reach.

Joshua Oppenheimer focuses on an individual who loves American cinema in his 2012 documentary The Act of Killing. The film follows Indonesian ‘politician’ Anwar Congo. Oppenheimer lets the movie unfold without narration, historical background, or context, letting Congo and his gang of lackies reveal themselves to the camera. We quickly learn about Congo’s past as the leader of a death squad, in Indonesia’s covered up 1965 genocide. Congo decides he wants to make a movie, like the American’s do, about what he sees as his grand achievements. Oppenheimer follows them during the making of their movie, a behind the scenes look at a mass murders vanity project.

The process echoes executive producer and documentary filmmaker Errol Morris’s style of truth-bending, with a love of recreations. The recreations in Killing however differ from Morris’ dramatized reenactments, in that Congo and his crew do it themselves, fully reveling in the atrocities they committed. In the beginning of the film, Oppenheimer and Congo go to a rooftop where Congo brags about choking a man to death in the very spot where they stand. Congo plays himself and eagerly acts out the murder for the cameras, keeping an eye on historical and physical accuracy. Anwar Congo is celebrated as a national hero in Indonesia, he believes he did a great service for his country and sees no wrong in his murder.

In a strange coincidence, Congo used to work at a movie theater that showed American films, selling tickets outside of the theater to make money with his gang before his rise. He speaks of American films in high regard. Congo likes to indulge in acts he thinks an American style gangster would: fancy suits, lavish meals, and ‘creative’ murder. His job at the theater is directly and economically connected to his hate of communists; as they began to ban American films, Congo and his gang started to make less money from scalping tickets outside the theater. As his sidekick says “Without (Hollywood movies), we gangsters made less money.” Perhaps without realizing it, these men have added a symbolic power to Hollywood film in addition to the films themselves. Congo walks and talks about leaving an Elvis movie, happy and catcalling, when he crosses the street to a paramilitary office where he regularly murdered Communists, he says “it was like we were killing happily.”

Anwar Congo mostly is entranced by the spectacle of American film. As Guy Debord states in The Society of the Spectacle, spectacle is “a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” Congo loves the spectacle so much, he decides his film must also have the same idea of spectacle behind it. There are dance numbers with a giant fish statue, a song about freedom where Congo is awarded a medal, and perhaps the most harrowing and challenging scene in Killing, a depiction of a town of Communists being raped and pillaged. All of the actors who participate in the latter’s destruction seem willing at first. Happy to be a part of a ‘great film’, and the men acting as the pillagers think this will be a fun scene to film. Intercut with Congo sleeping, these may be the demons that Congo repeatedly tells Oppenheimer haunt his dreams, causing him to lose sleep. It’s a disgusting simulacra of the crimes these men created. When the director finally yells cut, many people, including the children they used as extras are mentally distraught. The killers and rapists playing themselves even are put off by the realistic representation of what they have done. “Film stars only cry for a moment.” Herman Koto, Congo’s partner, tells his daughter. The ambient field recording nature of the sound in this scene detaches, yet enhances the dread. Debord says that “The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and beyond dispute. All it says is: ‘Everything that appears is good; whatever is good will appear.’” The Act of Killing turns this on its head. In Anwar Congo’s pursuit of the spectacle, he reveals his acts true nature, the awful guilt begins to consume him from the inside. Re-enacting these events has a therapeutic effect on Congo, finally allowing himself to accept the atrocious crimes he committed.

This culminates in Congo being tortured himself for the movie, after being blindfolded and whipped, he has a mental breakdown. He shows symptoms for shock: faintness, confusion, and chest pain. He’s barely able to move and talk. The scene is a stereotypical gangster interrogation scene, uninteresting and gauche, but Congo feels it as something else. The simulation of interrogation breaks him. What fantasies he used to have about filmic gangsters are having their revenge on his psyche. These simulations are what really opens Congo’s eyes. Jean Baudrillard examines this idea simulation in his work Simulation and Simulacra. Congo doesn’t realize he is not just being “interrogated” by Herman Koto acting, he is also being interrogated by the simulation of the interrogation. Congo isn’t feigning his ignorance to what he has done, he is a simulated nation hero. As this unravels, he sees the truth behind what he has done.

Oppenheimer builds to this in interesting ways. He regularly lets the behind the scenes footage of Congo’s scenes cut directly to Congo watching them back on his television in his home. His reactions start out joyful; he is pleased with himself and his creative talent. As he continues making his film, the more he seems disenchanted with it. He begins to build scenes into the movie to deal with his guilt, like the interrogation scene mentioned above, and a scene where his decapitated head is taunted by spirits.

Only through the process of filmmaking is Anwar Congo able to reconcile with the genocide he has committed. Influenced and nurtured by American cinema, he is deluded into glorifying a lifestyle without realizing the consequences of his actions. One of the last scenes in The Act of Killing is Congo returning to the rooftop from earlier in the movie. Just being present in the location is enough to bring Congo to the ground, lurching and belching out whatever evil still resides in him. “I know it was wrong,” he says “but I had to do it.”